Blouin Artinfo

The Best Gallery Shows of 2015

December 18, 2015

In many ways 2015 was a year of historical return for New York’s galleries, with successful exhibitions of the Memphis group (“wacky, boldly kitsch-adjacent design”), Hollis Frampton (“penetrating, conceptually-oriented photography”), and septuagenarian Lynn Hershman Leeson (“started making alliances between art and science well before trendy millennial artists”). Old stalwarts came home to roost, too, like Peter Saul and Wolfgang Tillmans, matching confident debuts from Camille Henrot and Lamia Joreige.

Peter Saul at Venus Over Manhattan

The masterfully bizarre painter has gone from undersung to omnipresent, now suitably worshipped by a younger generation. This Upper East Side survey of canvases and drawings from the ‘60s and ‘70s shined a spotlight on some lesser-known pieces, from the political (Vietnam; Reagan at the help of California) to the personal (“Sex Boat,” 1961, resembling a halfway point between Philip Guston and Carroll Dunham.